Detroit Free Press editorial today is on point. But when all is said and done, a lot more is said than done about the threat posed by ballast water to the Great Lakes. The shipping/port lobby is incredibly powerful.
The need to fend off Asian carp has grabbed the headlines recently, but it's equally important to keep the pressure on to treat ballast water, perhaps the most common way that foreign plants and animals make their way into the Great Lakes. Two important steps forward took place last week:
• A federal judge in California gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency two years to come up with a plan for treating ballast water discharges. This is an important victory in a case filed by an environmental group, joined by the attorneys general from the Great Lakes states, including Michigan's Mike Cox.
• The state of California passed its own ballast water rule, the second state to do so after Michigan. That should encourage other states to get on board, including the rest of the Great Lakes states and coastal states on both sides of the country. America's great ocean bays, from San Francisco to Chesapeake, have just as much trouble with invasive species as the Great Lakes do.
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060927/OPINION01/609270319/1068/OPINION
Posted by Dave at September 27, 2006 11:30 AM